New initiative to house, treat low-level offenders

The City Attorney’s Office and various city and county partners are launching a program to house and rehabilitate people who repeatedly commit misdemeanor crimes such as public drunkenness or trespassing downtown.

The offenders often are homeless people who commit quality-of-life crimes, meaning offenses such as disorderly conduct, public drunkenness and trespassing.

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said the SMART initiative — the acronym stands for San Diego Misdemeanant At-Risk Track — is an offshoot of the court program that allows people who commit low-level misdemeanors to avoid a criminal record if they complete community service and pay a fine.

Beginning Oct. 1, Veterans Village of San Diego will open 12 beds for the SMART program. Participants will commit for two years in the program.

Eligible clients will have been arrested at least twice for quality-of-life offenses in the past six months and have one or more drug arrest since the implementation of Proposition 47, the 2014 state initiative that reduced penalties for some nonviolent crimes.

The program will be offered to people facing jail time, a threat that will stay in place to reduce failure or dropping out. Defendants facing charges of violent crimes will not be offered the program.

Goldsmith said the initiative will target the most frequent offenders to stop the revolving door of arrests and incarcerations.

“You’ve got to find out what’s going on with them and try to get them the help they need,” he said. “Then they can help themselves. It’s better than what we’ve got now in the criminal justice system, which isn’t much.”

Besides Veterans Village of San Diego, the partners in the initiative are the American Civil Liberties Union, the Public Safety Group of San Diego County, Family Health Centers of San Diego, Superior Court, San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency, San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria, Mayor Kevin Faulconer, the San Diego Police Department, the Sheriff’s Department and the San Diego Housing Commission.

Senior Deputy City Attorney Lara Easton said people in the program could enter after being contacted by the Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team, a Superior Court judge or from Family Health Center’s community outreach.

Therapists from Family Health Centers will work with participants and monitor their success over the two-year program.

“If they say they (the participants) are actively engaged in treatment and they’re progressing, then they will stay in the program,” Easton said.

“We’re operating on a harm-reduction model,” she said. “With that, we’re looking at reduced recidivism so they’re not arrested again. We’re looking at nights in treatment and access to health care.”

Not every individual identified as eligible for the program is expected to take the offer, even though it would mean avoiding jail time.

Christine Brown-Taylor, manager of re-entry services for the Sheriff’s Department, will try to persuade those people to participate.

“If first they say no, they don’t want the offer for treatment, they may change their mind later,” she said. “We would help coordinate their release.”

As an example, Brown-Taylor said somebody may be sentenced to 120 days in custody on a drug charge, then have second thoughts about turning down the program after getting clean and sober.

“Our goal is going to be touching base with that person,” she said about the effort to get the ideal candidates into the program.

Kellen Russoniello, staff attorney with the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial counties, said the SMART initiative could represent a transformation in the criminal justice system by using a harm-reduction approach.

“Harm reduction is basically meeting the person where they’re at and not requiring them to meet a whole bunch of requirements before they receive services,” he said.

Russoniello also described the initiative as trying to reduce the harm caused by a person’s behavior, but not trying to stop the behavior itself.

With that approach, people can work on controlling their substance use to stop the cycle of arrest and trips to emergency rooms without being required to be abstinent.

“That philosophy has been very successful in other realms,” he said. “It’s where health care is moving in general. It’s to make services available to them so they can built on their own goals.”

Goldsmith said collaboration with the ACLU and other partners is crucial to the success of the initiative.

“It doesn’t mean all partners are going to agree, but it can’t be your way or the high way,” he said. “We’ve been able to find common goals and agreement.”

Goldsmith said once the program has proven to be successful, he will seek funding to expand it.

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